Page 31 - MetalForming February 2013

Late 2008 welcomed dark days for Midwest metalformer Eclipse Manufacturing Co. That’s when the firm’s largest customer went out ofbusiness,leavingalargeholeinits annualized sales. Combined with the era’s recession, Eclipse experienced a 40-percent decline in sales that forced management to close its sister facility in Pikeville, TN.
In a fight for its life, Eclipse, under private-equity ownership, hustled for 10 weeks to move and re-PPAP 160 end-item die sets from the Pikeville facility to its headquarters facility in Sheboygan, WI. Along with the dies came five stamping presses and all the necessary fixtures. Oh, and by the way, a new robotic-welding sys- tem landed at the shop during the
Editor’s Note: Since being named a Pioneer Metalformer and earning recognition from the Hitachi Foun- dation, Eclipse president David Arndt has left the company to pursue an opportunity with another metal- former and PMA member company. The current management team enthusiastically carries on the firm’s workforce-development initiatives.
same period of time—a leap of faith by owner- ship in the firm’s management acumen, with an understanding that continued investment in technology would play a key role in Eclipse’s recovery.
Pioneer Metalformers
Invest in Workforce Development
Case Study:
Eclipse Manufacturing Co.
Sheboygan, WI
BY BRAD F. KUVIN
Editor, MetalForming magazine, a publication of the Precision Metalforming Association
As if merging
the two plant’s
operations wasn’t
enough of a
challenge for the
Eclipse manage-
ment team, led by
then-president
David Arndt, the
firm faced one
more hurdle: negotiation of a new contract with its unionized labor force. Arndt faced that challenge head-on, and eventually forged a contract that, he says, had “big-time implications for the business (includ- ing a profit-sharing plan), but helped keep us afloat during the recession.”
As former company president Dave Arndt looks on, Eclipse’s first-shift production supervisor Dave Magritz describes his move from the firm’s maintenance department into manage- ment. “I needed to learn how to use my skills to motivate peo- ple and get the results we were looking for. I’ve become, I believe, fair, friendly and firm, to keep everyone working hard toward a common goal.”
Simultaneously, other forces were building that fortified Arndt’s belief that the company would not only survive, but thrive in the new econo- my. Those forces grew from a work- force-development grant issued by the state of Wisconsin, which pro- vided funding to help Eclipse launch
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